Chinese carmakers took an almost 10% share of the UK’s new car market in 2025, according to the latest figures for the year from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. 

The SMMT said that 9.7% of new cars last year were from Chinese carmakers, almost 200,000 cars. Electrifying revealed earlier in 2025 the success that Chinese brands were having in the UK and they finished the year even more strongly. 

The most successful of the Chinese brands was MG with 85,155 sales – the firm doesn’t like to be thought of as a Chinese brand, though the Chinese state-owned firm SAIC that runs MG acquired the 102-year-old British marque in 2007 when it bought up Nanjing Automobile, another government-backed outfit. 

MG’s 4% growth was rather modest compared with the other brands in the list – it launched some fancier premium models in the UK in 2025 (like the IM6 and IM5, which we liked), but its bestselling MG4 EV has missed out on the all new version that the home market is getting, instead focusing on a facelift of the existing car in 2026. The MGS6 EV was a new SUV launched at the end of the year that could help MG strengthen its place in 2026. 

​BYD and Jaecoo were the next most popular brands, with 51,422 and 28,232 sales respectively. Jaecoo’s figure is particularly impressive given that it sold just 209 cars the year before. BYD overtook Tesla as the world's largest EV manufacturer in 2025, so it was a good year all round. 

The worst seller of the 12 Chinese carmakers in the SMMT numbers was Skywell, which sold just 31 cars in 2025, though that did represent an impressive 417% growth on the six cars it shifted in 2024. The company announced this week that it was updating its BE11 SUV after 12 months on the market because of the negative feedback on the model. 

Perhaps more impressively, or threateningly if you’re an established carmaker in the UK market, the Chinese brands took 12.7% of electric vehicle sales in 2025, an area where many manufacturers from the country are seen as having a technological advantage over European players. BYD in particular has been applauded for its innovative battery designs, gaining an advantage over rivals by bringing much of the supply and construction of its parts in house. 

Check out our list of all the new electric cars arriving in 2026 here. 

There are even more Chinese cars arriving in the UK in 2026 – like this Leapmotor B05